Fantasy author accuses the online giant of using its market dominance ‘to control what we write and what we read’The grande dame of fantasy Ursula K Le Guin has weighed in forcefully to the debate about Amazon’s role in publishing. In a blogpost on the site Book View Cafe, entitled “Up the Amazon with the BS Machine, or Why I Keep Asking You Not to Buy Books from Amazon”, the American author has spoken out against what she describes as the company’s increasing influence not only on the bookselling market but also on which books get published, promoted and read. Her fierce conclusion is: “Every book purchase made from Amazon is a vote for a culture without content and without contentment.”After an analysis of how the “Best Seller Machine” has worked in the last decades, Le Guin writes that the online retailer is changing the culture of publishing. The Amazon model, she writes, is “easy salability, heavy marketing, super-competitive pricing, then trash and replace”. The ideal book, under this template, is “a safe commodity, a commercial product written to the specifications of the current market, that will hit the BS list, get to the top, and vanish. Sell it fast, sell it cheap, dump it, sell the next thing.” Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2015-06-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Major publishers are taking wildly different approaches to resolving the woes surrounding ebook lending at libraries: they're experimenting with both the short-yet-cheap subscription as well as an expensive option to pay only once for perpetual use. Sure enough, we're now seeing the middle road.... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2013-01-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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NewsCred, a tech-intensive news aggregator, is an up-and-coming player in the media industry thanks to licensing agreements with elite publishers like the Economist and Bloomberg. The company relies on these partnership deals and its own algorithms t ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2013-01-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A new £10,000 literary prize rewarding original fiction has been launched by Goldsmiths,... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-01-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Spar has installed Amazon collection lockers into nine of its convenience stores to make them... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-01-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Osprey Publishing is launching a new imprint focussing on “the blurred lines where fact and... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-01-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The National Schools Reading competition has launched today, with up to 200,000 children in years... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-01-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Think you can finish a 168-page novel in a month? It might pay to opt for Amazon's new Kindle rental feature, now available on an incredibly limited number of titles. A few options published by Princeton University Press appear to represent the site's introductory offering. The 5 Elements of... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2013-01-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Foyles has launched a new way to connect its bricks and mortar customers to its website,... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-01-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Harlequin UK is launching a new digital-only imprint called Carina UK, which will encompass all... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-01-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon's annual competition comes with some changes this year as the company plans to self-publish the winner and adds new genres for the contest. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2013-01-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hardbound books, apparently, are soooo 20th century -- at least for the upcoming BiblioTech library in San Antonio, Texas' south side. When the shiny, new public library opens its doors to bookworms this fall, visitors will notice something important missing: actual books. Instead, the facility... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2013-01-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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From Clay Foster, chairman and CEO of Journal Inc. and publisher of the Daily Journal: Today’s paper is the culmination of months of planning and hard work to go live on a new printing press. In challenging economic times this was not an e ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2013-01-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Move over Michelin and Frommer. There's a new guide to travel in town, and it comes from the creators of Wikipedia. Wikivoyage, currently in beta, will be ready for prime time on January 15, according to the travel site Skift. Earlier this week, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said during an... Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2013-01-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hodder & Stoughton is launching a new personal development list in early 2014, and has... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-01-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Up-to-date sales and royalties information are to become available to authors and agents via an... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-01-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The majority of independent booksellers saw a Christmas sales rise in 2012, with fall-out from... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-01-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Religion and spirituality publisher Darton Longman and Todd is publishing an "immediate... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-01-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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French bookshops and cultural product chains are following the UK example in protesting against... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-01-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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AMELI, the Association Maghrebine des Editeurs du Livre Independents, was launched late last month. The organization currently has 22 members Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-01-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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For long-time ebook buyers indoctrinated in Amazon's convenient ecosystem, trying to make the switch to a competitor can lead to frustration and disappointment. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-01-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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